Vivian tensed himself for the impact, but as the front wheels bit into the thin branches and the leaves flapped and scraped along each side of the bodywork, the car seemed to bound through a thin layer of undergrowth, and then, as Morrie straightened the wheel, they were moving bumpily along an almost overgrown dirt road, its surface cut and runnelled by rain and what appeared to be old cart tracks. He could feel Cooper’s eyes upon him, but he stared ahead, thrusting the feeling of hopelessness and defeat to the back of his mind. Of course, he should have reckoned with this situation, they were bound to make sure that they could not be followed and had obviously chosen this old, disused track with great care.
Ahead of the slowly moving car, he saw that what had first appeared to be steep banks of trees, proved to be
miniature
mountains of earth and gravel, overgrown with weeds and grass, and having the general air of neglect and man-made untidiness. They nosed between two of the humps, which he estimated to be about forty feet high, and through the driving lances of rain, he saw the flat, cold gleam of water. Not the blustery, uneasy swell of salt rollers, nor the clean, clear shimmering of a stream or river, but the heavy, dead, hard-top surface of unused and unwanted storage. He eyed it narrowly, and as Morrie eased the car to a dead-slow crawl and the wheels cautiously explored the uneven boards of a flimsy bridge, which linked the mainland with another forlorn section of wasteland, he realized that they must have entered one of the many disused gravel-pits, which abound in the area. From the corner of his eye, he watched Cooper’s hands, as they twitched impatiently in his lap, and he tightened his grip on the bag containing the heavy plates. One false move, he decided, and he would smash them down on Morrie’s skull, and then jump at Cooper before he could draw his gun, or whatever weapon he favoured at the moment.
Cooper, however, seemed more interested in the road ahead, and began to turn up the collar of his jacket, scowling at the mounting clouds.
‘Be gettin’ out soon,’ he remarked. ‘Better get your parcels ready.’
Vivian nodded, his eyes watchful. ‘Quite a headquarters you’ve got for yourselves.’
‘Only temporary. Sort of borrowed, just for this transaction, as you might say!’ The furnace doors of his eyes flickered at Vivian again, as if his pent-up hatreds were getting out of control.
Vivian felt a sudden tightening in his throat. What would happen, and when? As he stepped from the car, would they be ready to shoot him down? Perhaps Karen was already
dead,
like her uncle? A mist crossed his eyes, as he saw Jensen’s distorted features and staring, inhuman expression. No, not Karen! He ground his teeth together in anguish.
The car stopped suddenly in a small clearing, which, encircled by the banks of forgotten clay and dirt, seemed like a miniature valley.
A dilapidated, single-storey building leaned, rather than stood, alongside the twisted remains of a steel gravel scoop, its corrugated roof red with rust, and the thin, boarded walls, cracked and weather-beaten. Across the narrow door, in faded paint, was the statement ‘Office and Enquiries’. His attention was taken by a sleek, red sports car which was parked nearby. It looked so entirely out-of-place that his feeling of loneliness, and the tension of being trapped, was somehow increased.
‘Okay, this is the end of the line, sucker!’ Cooper was grinning, his uneven teeth bared with obvious pleasure.
Morrie got out of the car and walked heavily towards the building, heedless of the rain and of them. He climbed lightly out of the car, while Cooper slammed his door and hurried, muttering, round the back, to join him.
The cool, insistent needles of rain against his tanned face cleared the mist of nervousness from his mind, and he watched Cooper with a feeling of grim resignation, mixed with a sense of unreality.
Squinting against the rain, Cooper glanced at him, his eyes, questioning, ‘Come on then, ain’t you in a hurry to see the girl friend?’
Swinging the two bags in his hands, Vivian followed the stooped shoulder across the rough gravel space, the wet stones murmuring under his feet. They were sure all right. They were not even watching him. Morrie shouldered his way through the door, and as Vivian stepped over the threshold, his muscles taut, expecting a sudden blow, or a
shot,
he again had the absurd feeling that this was not really happening to him, that there had been no murder, no Karen, no fear.
The sight of Mason sitting casually behind a rough table, eating a sandwich from a spotless napkin, only helped to heighten these impressions. Mason put down the sandwich carefully and dabbed at his lips. In the rough, deserted office, with its peeling walls and air of desolation, he looked smug and self-assured, and older than Vivian had pictured him in his mind. The harsh light filtering through the grimy windows tended to accentuate the carefully brushed grey hair and the mottled skin. Only the eyes were the same. Stony and indifferent.
‘Right on time, I see.’ His voice was soft and clipped. He waved a well-manicured hand around the room, ‘Help yourself to a chair, we have certain business to discuss, I believe.’
Vivian stood still, his feet slightly apart, aware that Cooper had moved stealthily behind him, across the door, his hands in his jacket pockets. Morrie leaned against the wall behind Mason, his wooden face passive and without knowledge.
‘Where is Karen Jensen?’ The words dropped like pebbles in a still pond.
‘All in good time.’ Mason’s voice was smooth, but his expression hardened. ‘Have you the—er—goods, as we criminals would say?’
Vivian took a gradual step forward, his shoes making the only sounds in the room. Immediately, Morrie pushed himself away from the wall with one elbow, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, like an ape.
‘See here, Mason, you murdering bastard, I’m through juggling with you and your rotten tribe. I want the girl now, and quickly, and then we’re leaving, got it?’
‘You’re behaving rather as I expected you would, all your type are much the same, you know.’ Mason smiled thinly and toyed with the napkin on the table. ‘She’s alive and well, in the next room as a matter of fact.’ He jerked his head towards another small door at one side of the broken fireplace. ‘But first, let me assure you, my foolish friend, that you’ll have to keep calm and do what I tell you, or else …’ He let his words hang in the air. ‘Or else you will certainly get hurt.’ As he finished speaking, he flicked the napkin on to the floor, and Vivian caught a brief glimpse of a slender automatic pistol, before Mason snatched it up and pointed the muzzle unwaveringly at his stomach.
Mason shrugged. ‘You see? You haven’t a hope in hell. I could read your mind, the moment you stepped in here.’ He chuckled. It was not a nice sound. ‘You never thought there was any danger in a frail, little chap like me, now did you?’
Vivian stared at the pistol, a sick sensation in his throat.
‘No, you imagined that Morrie here was the one to watch, or Cooper, isn’t that so now? We’ve handled tougher gentlemen than you before now, believe me.’
‘Like poor old Jensen!’ The cold contempt in Vivian’s tone brought a flush of anger to Mason’s cheeks, and the gun wavered, as if he was about to squeeze the trigger.
‘Right, that’s enough!’ He spat the words between his tight lips, the casual and haughty veneer dropping from him like a discarded garment. ‘Just drop the plates on the floor, and no foolishness, or that’ll be your lot, I promise you!’ His eye fell on the other bag. ‘What’s in there?’
‘He’s brought a load of clothes for his little bird.’ Cooper’s nasal voice was gleeful.
‘Well, put those down too, just in case.’
The plates clattered noisily on the wooden floor, and as
Vivian
lowered the other bag beside them, he heard Cooper chortle with satisfaction.
Mason scowled in his direction. ‘All right, Cooper, just watch him, that’s all. Did you make sure of everything? No police cars, or anything?’
‘Nothing.’ Cooper sounded hurt at being rebuked.
‘Right, now back away, you two.’ Mason’s voice was controlled once more. ‘And, Morrie, get that bag up here.’
The big man dumped the plates in front of Mason, who eagerly tore at the wrappings with a knife. As the oblong pieces of metal came to light, Vivian tensed, waiting for Mason’s quick eye to notice the incomplete sets. He breathed a trifle easier, as the other man raised the first plate to the light and examined its intricate surface.
‘What a job,’ he breathed admiringly. ‘No wonder we never have any complaints about our supplies!’ He laughed shortly, and placed it back carefully on the pile.
‘All right, Vivian, you can go and see your Karen now. But no tricks!’
‘And then?’ Vivian’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
‘And then,’ Mason answered mockingly, ‘we shall have to decide what’s to be done with the pair of you.’
With a jerk he tossed the pistol to Cooper. ‘Just check that bag of clothing before you hand it over. Now, take him in the next room.’
Vivian crossed to the door, caring nothing for Mason’s sneer, and seizing the handle he thrust his way into the room. It was smaller than the one he had just left, and the only light was a feeble, grey glow, which filtered down from a dirt-encrusted skylight, which rattled and cracked to the monotonous beat of the heavy rain.
She lay on a low, makeshift bed of sacking and old canvas sheets, directly under the skylight, so that in the filthy and
drab
surroundings she seemed to shine in an unreal, statue-like pose. At first Vivian thought she was lifeless, and his heart almost froze within him, but as he watched with fearful eyes he saw the quick, unnatural breathing, the movement beneath the dust-smeared breast of the blue swimming costume which, creased and disordered, was still her only covering. The yellow tresses of hair were strewn across the sacking under her head and her face was white and strained under the tan.
‘What have you done to her, you swine?’ Vivian wheeled on Cooper, his face savage.
‘Steady now!’ The pistol rose menacingly. ‘She’s okay. Just a whiff of dope to keep her quiet.’ He waved the gun again. ‘Don’t go gettin’ any ideas either. As I said, she’ll be all right in a bit.’
Vivian flung himself down on his knees at the girl’s side and tenderly slid his hand under her shoulders, and lifting her head on to his chest, felt her rapid breathing fanning his cheek. Gently he smoothed a smudge of dirt from her cheek, and without releasing his grip slung his jacket across her legs.
Cooper tipped the contents of the bag on to the dirt floor of the room, and as the girl’s underwear floated down into the dust he whistled in lecherous admiration.
‘Well now,’ he grinned, ‘ain’t they just ducky?’
From his kneeling position on the floor, Vivian stared up at him, his mind a cold knife of fury. Unconsciously he tightened his grip around the smooth, bare shoulders, a fresh determination fighting off the recurrent waves of helplessness which seemed to mock him at every turn.
How they must have laughed at him, and how simple it had all been for them to play with his stupid, naïve approach to what was rapidly developing into the most dangerous situation of his life.
Karen moaned softly against his chest, and he almost cried aloud in his misery. To have been so easily snared was folly enough, but to have brought her to the edge of disaster was enough to send a new knife turning in his bowels.
‘Can’t you get out?’ He hardly recognized his own voice. ‘You’ve had your little victory. You must be damned proud of yourselves!’
‘I was goin’ anyway. But don’t think there’s a way out of here, ’cause there ain’t. Except through this door.’ He leaned forward, his pointed shoes glinting like two misshapen claws. ‘And believe me, if you try anything, nothing’d give me greater pleasure than to put a bullet into her little belly, seein’ that she seems to think she’s a cut above me!’ As he kicked open the door, the brighter light glinted on the spittle on his thin lower lip and the savage glint in his eyes.
‘Swine!’ But Vivian was, nevertheless, thankful to be left alone with Karen and his thoughts.
As she lay inert in his arms, he let his mind wander back over the mad stream of events which had somehow borne him along a new course, and into a final, horror-filled climax.
It was difficult to see the situation clearly, as would an outsider. To anyone else, he must surely be a criminal, a smuggler, and probably worse. He shifted slightly, trying to ease the pain in his cramped knees as they rested heavily on the uneven floor. A criminal, he thought, it sounded strange somehow, but then he could hardly expect to notice any real change in himself. Even the people he had been working with had appeared quite ordinary; except Cooper, that was. He twisted his neck to study the inside of the room more carefully. It must be a lean-to of some sort, he mused. As he had not noticed one when he
approached
the building, he decided it must be tacked on to the rear, probably resting against the big bank of dirt and waste gravel. The skylight appeared to have bars across the outside, thick ones too.
A heavy, sullen rumble rolled across the building, dying away in a threatening murmur. A real, thundery storm was brewing, and already the damp air in the room was growing thick and heavy.
Carefully and gently he began to ease the girl up into a sitting position so that she sat limply on the side of the bed, her hair and arms hanging motionless, giving her the appearance of a small, neglected child.
There was a pale blue flash, and shortly afterwards, another rumble of thunder. Closer this time, and somehow giving the air a fresh edge of imminent danger.
He gritted his teeth in desperation. Come on, man. The voice inside him seemed to be imploring. Are you going to let them take you both like sitting ducks? No fight? No nerve?
Even the heavy thuds of the raindrops seemed to accentuate the growing uneasiness.
Don’t panic, you fool. Think, think!
He swallowed heavily, his throat dry and raw. Then, reaching down, he took one of the girl’s small, limp hands in his and began to squeeze it, gently and insistently, at the same time murmuring softly into her ear.